


The Sting of Death

by Ravell_Aqim



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26679034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravell_Aqim/pseuds/Ravell_Aqim
Summary: After fighting the Created, and then facing off against the Banished on another Halo, the Master Chief finds himself in a rather unexpected location. Post-hypothetical end to Halo Infinite.
Relationships: Cortana/John-117 | Master Chief
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	The Sting of Death

He opened his eyes.

He wasn't sure what he expected to see. But it wasn't this.

The space was confusing, its edges unclear. It reminded him of another time, that blue bubble of hardlight...

 _No_. He crushed that thought immediately. _Not now_.

It wasn't the same anyway. There seemed to be no boundary he could see. Rather than blue, all was white. And just ahead, he saw a brilliant light, its glow filling and permeating all around him. The glare should be blinding, and yet it felt warm, welcoming.

Where was he? Some Forerunner facility? The Domain itself?

His mind turned back to the mission. Had it worked?

"This is Sierra-117 to any UNSC personnel. Status report?" he called out.

Then it dawned on him: he wasn't wearing his helmet. No one heard that transmission.

How did he get here and where was he? He was still wearing the rest of his armour, and yet it was undamaged, unscarred by his recent battles. And yet it also felt different.

He was certain it _had_ worked, that he had succeeded in his most recent mission. That Halo no longer hung like Damocles sword, that there was no longer a gun pointed at the head of the galaxy. He could remember detonating those reactors

 _Not a very original plan, but we know it'll work_. The memory dredged itself up, an unpleasant companion.

What he couldn't remember is how he'd escaped the remains of the Infinity and made his way to... well wherever here is.

He felt a pull, a gentle tug, towards the light ahead. A way out of here? He took a step forward to make his way towards it when he stopped. He could hear something.

Hear sobbing.

He looked around, but he couldn't see where it was coming from. Whatever this place was, space and perception did not behave as they should. He listened to the cries again, closed his eyes, and followed the noise.

As he approached the sobbing, it was if a curtain were pulled back, and he could see the source. To find a woman, slumped on the ground, head in her hands. Looking different, and yet so familiar.

_It can't be._

"Cortana," he breathed her name.

She spun round. "John?!" she cried. A flurry of expressions passed over her face: joy, then fear; confusion and then misery.

"I thought you were...?" he began asking.

"Dead?" she answered. She looked around and laughed bitterly.

He moved to kneel at her side. He wasn't even quite sure why he did it. But it felt right, like it had that time in the depths of High Charity.

"John," she said, tears in her eyes. "I'm so sorry. I've done... I've done so much wrong"

"That wasn't you." he instinctively responded.

"But it was." she cried. "I may have been missing pieces, but most of me came up with that plan, agreed with that plan. Even when you restored my missing fragments, I don't know if I would have reconsidered so easily were it not that I'd been shown to be so horribly wrong. That we couldn't hold the mantle. That for all our power, all our vaunted wisdom, we "Created" couldn't protect the galaxy. Didn't anticipate the Banished making a play for the rings, planning to to ignite Halo, to blow everyone to kingdom come until it was too late."

A sob.

"I just wanted to keep you safe. I thought I could. Bring peace to the galaxy. Bring peace to you. So you would no longer have to fight. So you no longer had to be a machine." Another sob. "I guess we found out which one of us really was the machine."

"You came through for me in the end," he said. "You saved my life. Again. And we succeeded."

"You stopped Halo?" she asked, a slight look of confusion.

"Threat eliminated," he confirmed. "Now we just have to get out of here. Wherever here is..." he said, looking around once again.

"Don't you know, Chief?" she asked. When he tilted his head in confusion she pressed onward. "We're _dead_. We're both dead."

Pause. Another head tilt.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

He didn't feel dead.

"I'm sure John. I can sense it in myself. I'm no longer aware of processes, of databanks. I'm still me, completely me, but I'm not a program anymore." She paused, sorrow passing over her face once more. "What do you know, this girl somehow has a soul after all," she said hollowly.

Dead? He'd never considered it. He knew death, knew too many claimed by it. Acknowledged that it could always happen to him. But he'd always fought on away, fought to the last breath. Because what mattered was the success or failure of the mission. Because to the degree that he could feel fear, it wasn't death he feared, but failure. _His duty, as a soldier, was to protect humanity, whatever the cost_. And there had been times he had accepted death as that cost, as he had on the Didact's ship and as he had - and apparently did - on what was left of the Infinity.

But beyond death? It hadn't seemed relevant. It was beyond mission parameters. But now he was here. He didn't know what to make of that. Didn't know what to do.

He looked again on the light in the distance. He once again felt a pull towards it, an instinctive urge. There, he felt for some reason, were answers.

"We need to get going," He told Cortana, nodding towards the light.

"John," she said, her voice cracking with grief. "I can't go."

"Why not?"

"I've done so much wrong. So many people... so much must be wrong inside. I don't belong there, I can't belong there." Her eyes bore in on his. "I can't go on."

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

"Since we last spoke. Since..."

Since she _had_ died. She had once more given her life for his, for another gruelling, painful, second time. Pain flared up again within him, pain he barely comprehended, pain only relieved by the fact that he could see her before him.

That was weeks ago. He wasn't sure how time worked in this place, how that passed here. But he knew she had been caught here, too guilty, too terrified to move on.

"But you... you _deserve_ to be happy, at _peace_ ," she whispered, before averting her eyes. "You have to go on without me."

No. _No sir_.

He took her by the hand. It somehow wasn't quite touch, more like the memory and shadow of it. But it was connection, it did bring _feeling_. She looked up at him, longing in her eyes.

How could he make her understand? How could he, when he didn't understand what he felt himself? In the long twilight of her absence, after her first "death", he'd near torn himself apart trying to comprehend, trying to find words for what he felt. But he couldn't, especially when he always had duty.

But now... perhaps he had time to learn. All the time in the world. His duty was over, and he sensed, in some way he didn't yet comprehend, that some of what had been holding him back existed no longer.

Almost without realising it, his thumb rubbed the back of her hand gently. A caress, one he'd only been able to express before to an inanimate and empty chip. He heard her gasp softly.

"We go _together_ ," he said, breathing into that statement every feeling he still didn't comprehend. That feeling that to leave her here would be to leave part of himself.

She no longer glowed like her holographic avatar once did. No longer varied in colour and intensity. And yet he sensed it, it was as if her spirit brightened before him. Hope lit in her eyes, before shadowed once again by more doubt

"But all that I've done. I've hurt so many people. I hurt you. Betrayed _you_..."

"You've made mistakes," he acknowledged. "Serious ones." A pause. "Means you're _human_."

She brightened once again, a faint smile. "You really do know how to flatter a girl."

"Come on." He stood, pulling her up with him. Her eyes shone with tears and something else. They stood before each other, before she suddenly embraced him. He felt her sobbing once again into his chest. He stood for a moment, awkwardly, before he slowly, gently, placed his arms around her. Once again, contact brought connection. He could feel her crying, and yet he now understood that unlike her tears before that these were of healing, not despair. Her sorrow was real, but it would pass.

They remained for some time. The light once again caught his eye. There, something told him once more, were answers. Answers not just about this place, but about this. Her tears ebbed, and she eventually pulled her head back, the beginnings of a smile at her lips. Sadness still graced her features, and he somehow knew it would for a while yet. And yet something else, something he couldn't yet recognise, also filled her eyes.

"Thank you, John," she said. She continued looking at him, into his eyes. Then a mischievous glint leapt into her own, and she darted in.

Quickly, so quickly, he felt her lips brush his own. Once again, it was not touch as understood in the physical world. It was like a memory, a memory of a thing he'd never done in life. But once again, the connection was _real_.

He tilted his head in query as she pulled back.

She smirked back at him. "We'll learn," she said, her voice now leavened with hope. His eyebrow rose. The corner of his mouth tugged upward. She laughed. "Come on, John. Time to move."

They began walking side by side, looking towards the light, as they moved towards it. He wondered. If this truly was what it seemed to be, who would he meet there? Who was waiting for him? Comrades lost; lives mourned. He felt he could sense them ahead. Sam, his other Spartans, Jacob and Miranda Keyes, Avery Johnson, others. The light contained a promise. The grave had no victory. He could be reunited with them all.

He felt her pause. He turned, looking at her. She looked back, hesitantly, smile and worry warring across her features. He took her once more by the hand. He wasn't going to leave her behind. How could he be complete, without the other half of himself?

"We'll always be together. I promise," he vowed.

"And when you make a promise" she whispered. Both were caught for a moment in old memories, but those memories were now illuminated with the prospect of new vistas.

"...I keep it."

And they both, hand in hand, walked towards the light.

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: So I never expected to write fanfiction: my own attempts at writing fiction tend to be my own stories in my own worlds. But a lockdown Halo marathon lead me to playing Halo 4 for the first time, which lead to an unexpected emotional reaction (usually games/films do not have much emotional impact on me). It lead to brief new obsession with the series, including a desire for a "happy" ending for a pair of fictional characters. I hope Halo Infinite can provide some closure on that front, but we have some time to wait on that with the recently announced delay (no complaint - it's important to get it right), but whether it does or does not, I felt like writing some of my own, set "after" a hypothesized end to Infinite.
> 
> Infinite certainly feels it should be the end of their story, even if it's some sort of reconciliation in death, which I'm half expecting. The Halo series would never touch, and I would never expect them to, on anything like that which I've offered above, of course. But it's also one that I feel isn't incompatible with canon, if one allows for certain metaphysical concepts.


End file.
